


The Dinner Job

by PlaidCladHobbit



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Pre-OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 07:36:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20224201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlaidCladHobbit/pseuds/PlaidCladHobbit
Summary: Eliot cooks, parker climbs, and Hardison plays Scrabble.





	The Dinner Job

Eliot Spencer stood unpacking groceries in a kitchen that really shouldn’t have been more familiar to him than his own. But he knew if he didn’t regularly cook for his friends they would get scurvy. Scurvy. In the freaking 21st century, like a pair of Victorian pirates without access to a single leaf for months at a time. He couldn’t allow that, so he cooked for them.

Several open windows allowed a gentle breeze to blow through the open-plan apartment and ruffle his shoulder-length hair. Which he then tied out of his face with a green bandana, then connected his phone to the speaker system. Hardison had set it up throughout the whole apartment while he was bored one night. It was great during game season. Eliot clicked the Summer Country playlist. Rolled up the sleeves on his blue flannel as Keith Urban began crooning. He collected the rind and juice of a lemon in a small bowl, mixing in some crushed saffron.

A skillet was pulled out of the drawer by the oven, exactly where he had put it last time. Neither of them touched his stuff. Eliot had cooked with Parker and Hardison’s equipment exactly once before replacing it with his own much better versions. Parker would eat cereal for every meal if Eliot let her, and Hardison thought orange fizzy and gummi frogs were major food groups. Just ‘cos it’s green doesn’t make it a vegetable damn it!

Eliot splashed oil into the pan and placed seasoned chicken thighs face down in it. The resulting sizzle was very satisfying. He pulled out a chopping board and began dicing an onion. 

\\\

As he was cutting garlic, out of the corner of his eye, Eliot caught Parker slipping in through the window. The window of her 4th-floor apartment. There wasn’t even a fire escape. She was insane. He transferred the chicken to a plate and used the knife to scrape onion, thyme, and garlic off the chopping board, into the pan. 

Parker jumped on his back. Eliot caught himself against the bench, “Parker. Get off” He was a strong guy, but she was a lot heavier than she looked. All that air vent gymnastics had turned her into solid muscle. 

She wrapped her legs around his waist, chin resting on Eliot’s head as she hooked an arm over his shoulder and stroked his soul patch with a finger. “What are you making?” she asked.

”Chicken Paella.” She reached into the pan with the other hand, only to be smacked with the flat side of a knife. “It ain’t ready yet,” Eliot growled and handed her a wooden spoon. “Stir that.” 

Eliot chopped capsicum, Parker stirred the pan, and Billy Ray sang. She began to hum along to a completely different song. The vibrations were strange against the back of his head, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.

\\\

A few minutes later, Hardison entered through the front door, like a normal person, and called out, “Girl. You know I love you, but you hafta stop scaling the building in broad daylight. It freaks people out.”

Still clinging to Eliot with one arm, Parker twisted to look at him as he came around the corner. “I had to. No keys.”

He walked over and wrapped them both in a quick hug. “Hey man, that smells really good.” 

Eliot grunted and continued stirring the rice and wine mixture. 

Hardison tapped at Parker’s ribs, where she always kept a set of picks and said, “I had mine, and you can lock pick. There were other options, safer options.”

Parker grinned with all her teeth, Eliot couldn’t see her from this position but he knew, he could feel it in the air. Parker grins were never comforting. They led to chaos, like leaping off buildings without warning, expecting one of their crew to catch her. 

And they would, they would catch her every time. But it made them all very cautious of that expression.

Hardison groaned and turned to the fridge, pulling out three beers and taking the caps off. Eliot put the chicken back in the pan and covered it. 

He tapped the legs wrapped around his stomach once. She immediately hopped down, taking a bottle and skipping out of the room. 

\\\

They sat on the couch and Eliot said, “So tell me about the meeting.”

He sipped his beer and they told him about the client and the company that screwed her over. About how she didn’t want money. They never wanted money, it always had to be something obscure. About how she just wanted her reputation back. 

They talked about research they needed to do into the company tomorrow and speculated as to which con Nate would have them run. Hardison bet on The Peruvian Handbasket, but Parker was adamant it was going to be The Greasy Strangler.

Eliot got up to finish dinner as moved on to arguing about what to watch on TV. He listened to them bicker and absently glanced around the apartment. It was nice.

Eliot’s place was pretty bare, he was never really there, and with the nature of their work he had to be able to leave at a moment’s notice. So hadn’t bothered to furnish it beyond the essentials, nothing sentimental or that could be used to find him or his crew. It made it easy to leave. But hard to return to.

Parker and Hardison’s place wasn’t much better, but it had little touches of them everywhere he looked. Hardison’s keys sitting on the kitchen counter, again, even though there was a perfectly good key hook right by the door. Parker’s leather beret and climbing harness hanging on the coat rack. Even he had more impact here. His boxing gloves were still sat against the wall in the lounge. They’d all gone up to the roof last week and he’d taught them some defensive moves. He needed them to be capable of protecting themselves on a job, for if ever he couldn’t.  
By the time he’d returned with everyone’s food and more beer, they’d finally agreed on something. He didn’t recognise it, but the quality wasn’t great and Bruce Willis looked young. Hardison must’ve won this time.

\\\

30 minutes in. Neither of them was even paying attention.

Parker was curled up on Eliot’s left side. Both her arms wrapped around one of his, and snoring into his shoulder. He didn’t know why they even bothered with movies anymore. This always happened.  
Someone always fell asleep, granted half the time it was him, but still.

Hardison was on his right, sprawled across half the couch all by himself. Right knee hooked over the couch arm, his left arm laid across the back pillows, playing idly with Parker’s hair hand and fiddling with his phone. 

It was the phone Eliot had bought as a joke for his last birthday. It was golden and cheap and plastic and shaped like a Lamborghini. Time was displayed on the windscreen, and the cockpit flipped open to reveal the phone screen. One of the wheels even spun to change the volume level. It was terrible and he loved it. 

He had loved it so much that he replaced all the hardware and loaded all his special nerd programs, or whatever. That shitty $30 joke was more powerful than Eliot’s whole computer.

Eliot shifted the small distance to lean into his side, getting a better view as Hardison played online scrabble. His opponent used two letters already on the board and made ‘discovery’ and he cried, “Oh come on, Nana!” Parker pushed her face between Eliot’s shoulder and the couch and kept sleeping.

“She’s kickin’ your ass,” Eliot said and squinted his letters ‘traalahf’. It wasn’t a lot to work with.

“Pffft,” Hardison replied, as though that was an actual answer.

“Have you ever won against her?”

“Not even when I was young. Nana’s not a quitter, you have to earn the win,” he laughed.

“Use their ‘i’, make ‘lariat’.” 

Hardison finally looked up. “That’s not a word.”

“It’s a wrestling move. Like a clothesline, but the attacker’s arm wraps around the other guy’s chest and drives ‘em into the ground.” He yawned, gripped Parker’s hand tighter and leaned further into Hardison. It was so much easier to be affectionate at night. When intent could be hidden behind fatigue and darkness. “I can show you if you like.”

Hardison chuckled, “Naw, that’s what I’ve got you for,” and entered ‘lariat’. “Parker’d be keen though, just don’t make her practice on me. I’ve still got bruises on my ass.”

“No promises.” Eliot looked at the plates and bottles on the coffee table, he generally cleaned as he cooked so there wouldn’t be too much mess in the kitchen, but he did need to deal with the leftovers sitting on the stove. 

\\\ 

Eliot awoke to darkness. 

The TV was off, Parker and Hardison were asleep, and there was a blanket covering the three of them. He could just see the plates still on the table, but if he moved they would wake up and go to bed.

And he would have to go home. Alone.

One of them was bound to wake up and he’d be kicked out. But right then he was warm, comfy, and surrounded by his favourite people. He leaned his head back against the couch and closed his eyes. 

Everything else could wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts?


End file.
